Swords into Plowshares
by Equilly
Summary: -Nation will not take up sword against nation- A series of shots. Survivors of the War struggle to regain their humanity, mourn their dead, raise their children, and shape a peaceful future. Featuring Éowyn, Faramir, Aragorn, Éomer, Arwen, and others.
1. A Mother's Hands

Title: "A Mother's Hands"

Characters: Éowyn, Faramir, Elboron

Rating: K+

Summary: Éowyn loves her son too much to love him.

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><p>"What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands."<p>

-_Macbeth_, 5:1:26

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><p>When her son staggers into the sitting room soaked in blood, she is flying at him in a moment: <em>where are you hurt? Tell me where you're hurt<em>, but it is only some frantic, pounding moments that she hears his little voice, his child's hands on her face, patting, grasping, seeking to escape.

"Ma," he is saying, "_Ma_. It's just paint."

She falls back a little. "Paint?"

He nods, eyes wary, and she sees that the crimson that stiffens his tunic is indeed brighter and redder than blood's wont.

Relief sharpens her voice. "Paint! And what were you doing to spill paint all down your front? Never mind. Go to your room and have Nurse help you wash."

Once she is gone she holds herself tightly to still her shaking hands, standing at the blazing fire, and thinks.

Her son's eyes, regarding her as he might a strange, untamed beast, a rabid wolf. Is that what she has become- unstable, unloving? The hands that reach out to smooth her son's hair are soaked with blood, coating her palms, under her nails, slickening her grip.

_Out, damn spots!_

She rubs them together restlessly. It had never occurred her to consider this blood, not until she held her own child and realized that her hands were ungentle and callused, and though she might spend her days studying her leechcraft now, does she still not tear the pants from the ground? It seems she cannot help but wreak destruction, that it clings to her like the stench of death. Oh, to clasp him tightly to her, to hold him, to love him as she wishes, but her hands are stayed; she cannot touch him, she may not touch him.

Faramir finds her there and she wants to rage at him, to lash out in anger, but find she cannot. His grey eyes are understanding but without pity. Had she seen pity, she would have struck him.

"He does not love me," she says.

"He loves you."

She nods, crossing her arms across her chest. _I cannot touch him with these bloodied hands because I love him so_.

When night comes she finds she cannot sleep, though Faramir does, and she slips out of bed, padding through the halls in bare feet, nightgown billowing about her slender form. She does not need a light; she knows this house well. She goes to his room, kneeling by his bed, and there she studies his little face, hears him breathe. If only he knew how much I loved him, she thinks, that I love him enough to break my heart, enough to hold myself away from him, enough to stay my hands.

In the morning Elboron wakes to find his mother kneeling by his bed, her head slumped onto the covers, hair like a shining river of cold across the white of his quilt and he puts a trembling hand to her cheek.

In the quiet of the dawn, she smiles oh-so-faintly and he whispers _I love you_.

She says nothing because she cannot find the words but he understands the love in her eyes, in the hands that she, tremblingly, reaches out to take his.


	2. The Promise

Title: The Promise

Characters: Éomer, OCs

Rating: T

Summary: Éomer struggles to keep a promise despite his own failings and tries to become a healer of his people.

Disclaimer: Perfunctory as always. I do not own _Lord of the Rings_, though that would be nice.

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><p><em>The Promise<em>

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><p>In the heat of the moment, he imagines it is an unbreakable vow: the man's lifeblood gushing in great rivers out of him, his frantic eyes, his grip on Éomer's forearms. <em>My son.<em>

He meant well, truly, for Éomer Éomund's son is a man who keeps his promises, and when all the other men have gone off to their revelry he hesitates a moment, telling Éothain, "I will meet you there," and when his friend might have protested he motions for him to go.

Léofa's eyes are blank, his hands clenching and unclenching on his knees. It is the shock of the battle, the numbness, the horror- Éomer remembers it well; it is precisely why he plans to drink himself into a stupor tonight.

"Come with us," he says, clasping his hand around the younger man's forearm. "Drinks on me."

The boy shakes his head. He is barely seventeen years old, or so Éomer thinks, but then he barely knows the him- small and slim for his age, with long, curling eyelashes like a girl's. It is a bard's face, not a warrior's, but already there are new shadows that hover beneath his eyes, in the set of the jaw, in the nervous motion of his hands.

The boy relents, finally, and Éomer thinks he will be fine, or at least he convinces himself that he will be fine, for he knows the horror of war is not a mere ghost to be wiped away by a few drinks, but he tries all the same, and by the end of the night there is not a one of them able to stand upright without swaying very dangerously.

And then, well, the next year is complicated, to say the least: taxes, laws, rebuilding the Westfold, refugees, his sister's marriage, Dunlandings- in short, a busy year, and he forgets, setting aside his promise for the time being. He never meant to neglect the boy, not exactly, but he feels vaguely uncomfortable, for Éomer is a man who likes solid ground, the realms of the tangible and he tells himself that any ailment of the mind, any shadow of the war, can be cured by a good drink and a tavern wench and of course, time, and so he sets aside all vague stirrings of guilt.

"The boy will be fine," he assures himself.

The boy's mother comes to see him that winter, her eyes edging into panic. Wilflaed is not an old woman, but at somewhere between thirty and forty she has the eyes of one much older; her hair is streaked with grey, her face sagging and weary. She is a colorless woman, blanched pale by the passage of the years, and he has always thought her dull and lifeless, but in her devotion to her son she is surprisingly fierce and determined.

"Please, lord," she says to him, "I do not know what to do- he-," And she begins to weep and somewhat awkwardly he steadies her, for Éomer does not know how to comfort a woman. "_Please_."

He sees the bruises on her throat that she has tried so hard to conceal, mottled purple and yellow.

"Léofa," he says, "if you ever need a friend, come to me."

The boy's face is turned away; there is a new sullenness to it, a new measure of awareness, as if there is no returning to boyhood dreams. Éomer thinks to the vague memories he has of this boy; they are far and few, but he remembers that as a child he had struggled to learn Sindarin and his voice had been clear and high as he sang the old songs at the feasts where everyone gathered.

But there is a kingdom to be run, a peace to be made with the Harad, a princess to wed, and he loses himself in the never-ending responsibilities of a king and his visits to Léofa are short and perfunctory, consisting of little more than small talk and a vague promise of friendship.

It is Wulfric his squire who comes to him with the news, his small face pale, freckles dark against the white of his skin, saying, "Your Majesty, it is- Léofa-,"

He is not surprised, but he thinks that he might have spared this boy such a life, but his hands are ungentle. He is a warrior, not a healer, and yet he is expected to hold this realm together, to guide his people, to heal the hurts that stem from years of torment. What sort of king can he be?

Léofa's body sways gentle, his beautiful, delicate face darkened to purple in death; the tree bough creaks under his weight, and Wiflaed weeps in a sudden, violent rush of emotion, unstoppable as the river when the dam is cast aside.

And Éomer is unable to find words. There are no promises left to him now, only sudden, acute bitterness and something that tastes of fear. What sort of king is he to be?

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><p>AN: Reviews would be lovely. I'm curious what you think of the characters, namely Éomer; I hope I've kept him in character.

Best!

claire


	3. Twilight

Title: Twilight, or Of Elves and Men

Rating: K+

Characters: Arwen, Elrond, Celeborn, and a shameless Lothíriel cameo

Summary: There will be no more twilight. Elrond sails from Middle-Earth and Arwen remains as a Queen caught between Elves and Men

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><p>"I will cleave to you, Dúnadan, and turn from the Twilight. Yet there lies the land of my people and the long home of my kin."<p>

- _The Tale of Arwen and Aragorn_

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><p>She was sewing.<p>

Nice, simple stitches that could have been perfect if she had tried, but sometimes Arwen did not want to be perfect.

Elves were accustomed to perfection; all her life she had striven to be perfect.

Her ladies were seated about her and they watched her with careful, polite eyes; she knew they reported to their fathers and brothers and sisters and fiancés if she so much as frowned or sighed, if she had a headache or dropped a glass of wine, if she decided to retreat into her bedroom for just a moment's peace, and then began the gossip.

The Elf Queen.

Beautiful she might be, but she was a foreigner and for all that her nights with her husband were blessed, she was not with child.

Estel did not see, though he too was a foreigner, for he was so very loved by all who saw him; he had won their hearts, taken them for his own. In their faces she saw no question; the servants bowed, the children ran to him in the streets to bring him flowers, the people reached to brush their fingers along his cloak as if he was a god. It was, Arwen knew, an exhausting role. They expected nothing less than perfection, nothing less than a legend, and though Estel might be just that, brave and beautiful and strong and good, he was a man. He cried, he bled, he loved.

Still, he was beloved.

But Arwen? She might be beautiful, she might be gentle, she might be clever and kind and she might love the world that spread beneath her feet, but she was strange and alien and unfathomable, high and unreachable.

They could not love her.

The conversation flowed past her.

"His Majesty is…"

"The _king _of Rohan is coming, they say, but when-,"

"My father says-,"

She struggled to make perfect reply and instead sipped her wine.

It was summer; the air was hot and heavy and she tasted the coming storm, saw the thickening clouds to the south. She let her eyes drift to the open window where far below a white shirt fluttered in the wind of a clothesline. It transfixed her.

And then, suddenly, it was as though she had been sundered, as though she had been stabbed through the heart; gasping, she felt her wineglass slip through her fingers.

_Crash_.

Splintered glass and dark crimson wine on the white marble floors.

"Your Majesty?" Like frightened doves they fluttered about her and the lady Malheril called hysterically for a page.

It was the Princess of Dol Amroth who took her arm: "Your Majesty, please, sit down," and she realized that she must have risen, but she wandered about in a strange, dazed world and she could not breathe, could not see, and then hands helped her to sit and then she tasted cool, clean water.

"Adar," she rasped. "Oh, _Adar_."

.

He was gone.

.

It was not really summer, she remembered.

It was autumn.

"I've sent a messenger to His Majesty," the Princess told her, "but it will be some weeks- this storm is too heavy."

She nodded. She did not want to lie abed, but she had no choice; the leech had come to examine her, an old woman called Ioreth, her eyes beady like a crow's, and she had tilted her head to one side and said that mayhap Her Majesty was with child.

No, Arwen had said. No.

My father has gone.

She was so frighteningly alone.

.

Horses' hooves.

Perhaps it was Estel, but no, there was that storm in the South, and Estel might have come for her, but the king could not, and she was so sad, so splintered, so lonely, like a little child- she was just a child, so young, she should have gone to him, should have sailed with him, _Mother_, and-

_Your Majesty_, someone was saying, _Your Majesty_, and then, "Arwen-," a voice with the strength of centuries, an iron will forged by loss and pain and strife, a voice with the singing silence of the forests and the beauty of the sun through the leaves on a summer day, a voice that made her a child once more.

"_Oh_," she said, helplessly, "Daeradar!"

And he was there and they walked outside beneath the fading trees, together and she clung to him and wept, tears soaking his tunic, as the afternoon dipped into twilight.

"I am too young," she whispered, "oh, what I fool I was!"

"It is a terrible price," her grandfather said, and his touch was gentle on her cheek, "one that we have long foreseen for you. But there is life, too-,"

And she laid a hand on her flat stomach. "Not yet."

"Before she left," he said, "she saw it. She looked into her mirror and she saw that you would bring life to this world."

What else her grandmother had seen, Celeborn did not say, but she did not question his words and drew close to her that fragment of comfort.

"I will stay," he said to her, and she saw the sudden sharp pain in his face and thought of her grandmother.

But for now, she could not think through her own grief, sharp and blinding and splintering.

Shards of glass and crimson wine.

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "Yes," she said. "With me."

.

And she remembered.

.

"A new age," her father had said to her, the day they had bade each other farewell. "The age of Men. The time of the Elves has gone. But you, Daughter, you are somewhere in between-,"

The choice of Eärendil and Elwing, of Elrond and Elros, of Lúthien- it lay bare before her.

"And so we go," he said, "but you will remain, and you will bring them life, and dignity, and beauty as they have never know before."

Tears sparkled like diamonds beneath his eyes.

.

He was called Eldarion, Son of the Eldar, but he would be a king of men, and his days would be bright and blessed, the nights coming swiftly and surely.

There would be no twilight.

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><p>AN: Meh. I dunno what to think. Please review!

-claire

3 September 2011


	4. The Judge

A/N: Another cloudy fragment of a story that seems to be a crossover between my Ethics class and CSI. Please tell me what you think!

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><p>Title: The Judge<p>

Rating: T

Characters: Lothíriel, Imrahil, OCs

Summary: Lothíriel oversees a murder investigation in Dol Amroth and must decide between the truth and a lie.

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><p>The Judge<p>

"Tell me then, what is the pious and the impious, do you say?"

- Socrates, _Euthyphro_

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><p>Mud squelched under her boots and Lothíriel nearly slipped for the third time; last night had been a hard rain and the dirt road that led through the town had turned to mire, threatening to pull anyone who dared lay foot upon its surface into a muddy brown grave.<p>

"All right there, m'lady?"

"Yes," she said curtly. The clouds on the horizon were dour, hinting that last night's storm might not have been the last. The bright blinding sunlight had turned to rain and fog and sometimes she was hard put to remember that all was well in the world once more.

"Right over here," said the guard. He was a young man, cheerfully irreverent in all that he did, but now he sobered, his face set in grim lines. "It's not pretty. M'lady."

"No, I don't suppose so."

It was a simple house like any other she might have seen in the village, made of crudely hewn oak and plastered with mud to weatherproof it. Unlike its neighbors, it seemed strangely forlorn without the customary curl of smoke from its chimney, and she thought it would be very cold inside.

"Your Highness?"

"A moment."

She could have waited for her father, she supposed, as everyone had expected, or better one of her brothers, but when she had heard the news two villagers dead in their home she had called for her boots and informed the startled page that she would go. For a moment she wavered.

Then she went inside.

No survivor of the War could emerge unscathed, and she recognized the stench immediately. It was the sort of memory she would never forget as long as she lived, and no matter how old she grew, she knew she would always remember her first sight of death, the first fresh bodies, the first decaying corpses, the first blood-stained fields. For a moment she stood on the Pelennor once more, peering across the remains of her broken country, wondering if any whom she loved lay strewn like dolls across the ruined fields.

She recognized the grey-faced man who sat hunched in the corner as the mayor of the village, and the other taller man as the captain; he came to bow to her, regarding her with some confusion, and she gestured for him to speak.

"Woman stabbed a dozen or so times, husband stabbed in the heart. Bled out pretty quickly."

"I see. Did any of the neighbors see anything?"

"Nothing. Best I can see, the husband went mad and killed his wife and then himself. Poor bi- ,"

She cut him off. "Why did he kill her?"

He looked only a trifle embarrassed at confessing that he had no idea. He was a smart man, she thought, and had had the charge of overseeing the meager band of soldiers left to guard Dol Amroth during the war. He had never seen battle except for a few distant glimpses of the Corsairs.

The house was small and crude; she saw remnants of a homely life, a hard one, a life so unlike her own as to make her ashamed. They had one narrow bed and a hearth and a chest of some sort. She went to it and saw neatly folded calico dresses and worn trousers, a patched apron. In the corner was a three-legged stool.

"What time were they found?" she asked.

"Yesterday afternoon."

"There are no dishes anywhere," she said. "They were killed during the night."

"And their nightclothes," said the solder, and she was briefly discomfited.

"Of course."

She went outside and pressed a hand to her whirling, aching head. The smell was cloying, clinging, and she was certain that when she returned, even if she scrubbed every inch of skin raw, that she would still smell the stench of death. It clung to every particle of her being, to her memory, to her soul.

"Milady?"

Another of the village women offered her a dipper and gratefully she drank the water inside. It tasted of mud but it cleared the bile from her mouth.

"Thank you. The bodies ," she said, and found she could not finish.

"Faronhim," said the woman. "Faronhim and Gaelchol,"

"Yes," she said. She had forgotten that they had names. "Thank you. Would you tell me about them?"

The woman twisted her apron in her hands. She was older than Lothíriel, but barely, and if she was distressed she kept her face remarkably composed.

"Married just three months ago," she said. "Gaelchol thought she was with child."

She studied the mud that encrusted her soles. "I see."

"Faronhim came home not two weeks ago," said the woman, and at this her composure slipped. "Came back, only to be _slaughtered_?"

"I am sorry," Lothíriel said, but the words were inadequate, and in any event, she could not offer anything else. She had not known these people and their names were ill-suited to her tongue. They had a false ring of fiction, for they would only be bodies in her mind.

A thought hovered on the edge of her mind.

"What was he like, when he came home?"

"Oh," said the woman. "Well ,"

She thought of the men she had known and the terrors that wracked her own nights.

"He was different," she said finally, flatly.

.

The Prince of Dol Amroth returned a week later to much fanfare; the sun had broken through the clouds, having decided to submit to the customary weather pattern of June, but all the same his retinue was liberally splattered in mud. She watched, fingers worrying at her skirts, as he dismounted and granted her a tired smile.

"All is well?" he said.

"I think so," she answered.

Later that night, once he had washed the grime of the journey from Minas Tirith away and poured himself a generous portion of wine, and she lit the lamps and settled down with him over the accounts. As ever, her writing was meticulous and he had nothing but praise that made her glow.

"There is one matter more," she said, and she explained of the murder of Faronhim and Gaelchol.

"What have you done, then?"

She looked away. "I said…"

"Yes?"

"I told the truth, that I thought Faronhim had killed his wife and then killed himself when he saw what he had done."

Her father exhaled. "Recently returned home, you said?"

"Yes. His brother said that he slept with a knife under his pillow because he feared the enemies would return, that nightmares haunted his sleep. One of the neighbors told the captain that often she had bruises on her throat, and her mother said that he had hurt her often in the throes of a dream."

Imrahil drank deeply from his wine and when he set it aside, she saw the furrows slashed across his face, new lines cut by the turmoil of the war. "And so he is to remembered as a murderer?"

It was mild: a question, not a condemnation, and so she sought to explain.

"I thought that at first, I should lie, that someone else had killed them."

"He served Gondor bravely."

"Yes," she said, hesitating, "and I do not wish to set aside his sacrifice."

He was silent, the firelight flickering in eerie shadows across his face.

"But," she said, "who are we to decide justice? If _I _were to decide what happened, if I could change the truth, then what sort of world do we inhabit?"

He gestured for her to continue.

"What sort of a world would it be," she said, "if we could, arbitrarily, lie? Where is the line? It seems to me it would be one etched in sand, because if I change this man's life, then how am I to stop? Justice may be ugly, but it is just all the same."

When her father finally spoke, it was gently. "And still, this man is to be labeled a murderer."

"Yes," she said, shoulders slumping. "I wish it were not so."

.

The graves were dug in the soft, sinking mud, and she watched with tearless indecision, knowing she had done the right, if there was such a thing as justice.

"There is one thing more I have learned," she said to her father. "This war will never be over, not if we live a thousand years."

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><p>AN: Again, reviews make my day. Please let me know what you thought!

Note: The opening quote is taken from Plato's writings, but the character who spoke them was Socrates, and so I have attributed the thought to Socrates rather than Plato.


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